This invention relates to active armor for personnel carriers such as tanks. In particular this invention relates to means for protecting the surface area of the personnel carrier from attack and penetration of armor by various types of anti-tank projectiles.
In a war zone it is desirable to protect the personnel operating military vehicles. Military personnel carriers include tanks, jeeps, trucks, ships, and aircraft. Most traditional armor against anti-personnel carrier rounds has been "passive." Passive armor generally is a structural component of the vehicle wall and does not react actively to the strike of an anti-personnel carrier round. For the purposes herein the vehicle carrier described will be a tank. However, it should be realized that many other types of personnel carriers and vehicles are used in a military application to which the instant invention will apply. There are three general types of anti-tank missiles. The first is an armor piercing kinetic round also known as a kinetic penetrator or a sabot round. The sabot round consists of a very narrow, elongate, and dense projectile propelled at an extremely high velocity by a gas explosion. In flight, the sabot round has a flight vector consistent with the central axis of the round. The projectile does not contain an explosive charge, however, due to its extreme density it quickly penetrates the tank armor where it then ricochets off the interior of the tank walls, killing or wounding the personnel inside. In the past, in an effort to defeat the sabot round, sandbags or other types of materials have been placed over the tank armor. The sandbags were placed over the tank walls in an effort to cause the projectile to strike the soft material and be deflected off of its flight vector such that the round spins out of the way. As can be readily appreciated the "sandbag" method didn't always work, leading to disastrous results.
The next type of anti-tank round is called a "shaped charge." This missile strikes the tank wall and detonates. A high-intensity explosion occurs within the charge. The heat energy of the explosion is tunneled through a narrow, elongate portion of the charge, generating an extreme heat. This heat burns through the armor wall of the tank and causes a heat explosion inside the tank, which will incinerate the personnel inside. Again, sandbags have been used in an effort to defeat the shaped charge. Also, in other attempts to defeat the shaped charge, an outer layer of metal has been welded to the tank surface which leaves an open inner area between the outer layer and the tank surface. This method provided some relief from a shaped charge, however, it provided no protection from a sabot round.
A third type of anti-tank round is a high explosive plastic charge also called a "HESH charge." HESH stands for high explosive squish head. This charge consists of a missile with a plastic explosive head. It strikes the tank armor and spreads a layer of explosive charge over an area of the tank armor. The charge then explodes. While this explosion does not penetrate the tank armor, it does set up a shock wave which causes the inner tank armor wall to fracture and explode inward thereby killing or wounding the personnel inside.
In the past while there have been attempts at creating various types of armament to avoid the effects of these types of charges, there has been difficulty in arriving at a means of protecting against all three types of charges. Most traditional methods of armament have protected against one type of charge or another, but not against all three types. Thus, there is a need for an armament which will help protect a personnel carrier such as a tank from a sabot projectile, a shaped charge projectile and a HESH charge projectile.